A wide variety of software tools have been developed to facilitate the process of manipulating different types of digital data. For example, image editing software applications have been developed to adjust, modify and otherwise manipulate digital images. Such software applications generally allow a user to make global manipulations to an entire image as well as localized manipulations that affect only a selected portion of an image. Making localized manipulations generally comprises a two-step: process of first selecting a portion of the image that is to be manipulated and then applying the desired manipulation to that selection. Such image editing software applications also often allow a user to copy and/or extract a selected portion of an image, which also involves making an initial selection of the portion of the image to be copied and/or extracted. There remain, however, a number of non-trivial limitations with such existing editing applications.